December Roses
by simplysarcastic
Summary: [“Real heroes are forgotten.”] She comes to his grave every December, and mourns the passing of the only hero she ever knew. [rewrite]


**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros. Inc.

**December Roses**

In the midst of the December morning, lost to those who would ever seek her, a young woman stands alone. Her face is hidden underneath a heavy hood, and her frail body is engulfed beneath a warm, woollen robe. Between clasped fingers, an untouched rose is held. The pale, thin hand that holds the waxen flower shakes with contained anguish, almost losing its tense grasp many a time. And the breeze, carrying both sleet and snow, wraps around her, icy fingers pulling her closer to her death.

She looks out blindly at the world, tendrils of bright, flamboyant hair escaping the confines of her hood. She doesn't notice, merely pushing them behind her ear slowly. She pulls her scarf and rags closer around her body, a shudder running through her body, and she begins to walk again. The rose, now touched by frost, looks frozen in time and place. She walks along a dirt path, stumbling sightlessly whenever an unexpected stone or patch of ice rests. Her ragged, trodden boots mar the untouched snow, creating deep imprints in her trail. Along an old garden patch, winding around dead trees and sprightly evergreens, she walks, often tripping and falling. She looks like a mere infant, blind and unsullied.

She rests. Leaning against the bark of a tree, she holds back tears and whispers harshly into the wind, "True heroes are forgotten, forever misplaced."

She remembers the boy who taught her the words, laughing softly when she stared up at him in confusion. His dark, curling hair had been overgrown at the time, hiding his face behind a mask. She had not understood how heroes could be forgotten – they were ancient, timeless, forever engraved in history books and childhood tales. She had once loved the boy, with his dancing blue eyes and shy dimples – he was never truly handsome, but merely pretty instead.

He told her of where glory lay, in what crooks and crannies the true monsters hid. He was different from others, he was quiet and timid, but saw and knew all for it instead. He had no foolish desires of fame and riches, for he was just a boy, seventeen years of age, and knew nothing would really befall of him. She'd chastise him constantly for these words; for he was the most daring boy she had ever known. He would never the courage or power to save the world from oncoming peril, but he would know how to go about it, years before it was truly needed.

Her shoulders shake, her eyes both watering from the cold and the memories she recalls. She knows well that it is past, it is over, and the chances of a new life still lay before her. Yet, how can she let him go? How can she forget her only true saviour and love? He had taught many things, all wise and true, and made her believe in fate and hope. Before she truly knew him, he was merely a coward and fool, but now he is the bravest soldier she will ever know.

_True heroes are forgotten._

How true those ancient words run these days, for a new champion is high above the others. He was the end of the Second War, people say in the streets, he was our only prospect and he rose to occasion. She wonders if these people remember the war, for surely they must, and had they lost loved ones to the massacre. Those people, the slain warriors, they were the true heroes, the ones who died for neither fame nor riches, but merely for a distant hope.

She doubts they genuinely remember.

Again she walks, past the rows and rows of the dead, past dead lilies and carnations, past monuments and memorials of the dead. Dead, dead, dead – nothing living dare ventures here, for the sorrow that surrounds the area is vast. She wonders if there is any soul left inside her, and maybe that is the reason behind this lost little girl she plays. She is almost there; she feels it, even if her sight is lost. Her head, a delicate thing since the last battle, aches suddenly, and memories invade her thoughts.

The smells, they are what she remembers best. The sickly, metallic scent of blood and charred flesh was everywhere – drenching her school clothes, on the castle walls, and over her classmates and friends. She had cried dreadfully, behind the burning wood of what once was her House table, clutching her friend's broken body. She felt like a coward, hiding there with younger students, but she saw and felt nothing but agony. Later, when they told her he had been slain in battle, she had never felt so empty. It was almost as if everything was gone, everything but the dull throb of her heart.

She was a broken child. Just another broken little girl.

The screams of the damned and the saintly still rang in her ears, and she let a choked sob escape her colourless, chapped lips. The colours of fire, ferocity… regret. The feeling as she was slammed into a stone wall, the pain curling up in her skull as blood leaked down along her shattered jawbone. The feel of sticky blood running down her fallen body, the realisation that she couldn't see their faces. Blood and death, it seemed to be the only outcome behind this confrontation.

The war was won, however, and that's all she should really remember.

But, anyone who was there, watching bodies collapse in midair, would never remember such trifle details. They would remember the feeling of vulnerability, of failure, when they lost an arm, a leg… a loved one.

She shakes it away, tears running down her face freely now. She was coming closer now, she was almost there. Each step drove her further, nearer, to him. She didn't know if she could handle it, but she had to, at least today. All she had was just another day, for who knew if the other would come again?

He had fallen, her only maintain on sanity, and with him perished hundreds of others, some eagerly and others not. But no-one remembered the shadows, the real heroes, for Harry Potter had died that day as well. The media, the families, they sustained that he was the messiah; he was the promised man to stop the suffering. Yet, he had not done so unaided, for many had lost their lives to assist him on his struggle. No-one remembered them, however, for they were just others, just mere humans. Harry Potter was a legend.

She laughs bitterly at the thought, remembering the boy well. He was not a bad person, she had once loved him too, but prominence and prosperity formed him into someone else, someone she could no longer feel affection for. He had lost his soul along the road, and she couldn't wait for him to re-emerge. She knows she is cruel and heartless, but the memories are both and more. The years have been cruel on the young woman, poverty and disillusions trailing in her wake.

Work is sparse for most, and little blind girls don't find work easily. Another thing the war had ruined: her life. Of course, it had ruined many lives. But, right now, she didn't feel particularly contrite for them. All she could see was the flash of brilliant light, his body collapsing on her as a sick, twisted goodbye. He gave up his future because of love. She both hates and loves for it. He was her only hope for redemption, but now he is another mislaid and forlorn memory.

He was a hero, a true one, fighting because he knew there was nothing left, not because it was fated. He could have been that boy, nay, man, who was documented by the media, loved by the public, but it didn't turn out that way. She was happy for that.

He wouldn't be the same.

"There she went again," she bitterly muttered, "pretending he was still alive. He wouldn't_ have been _the same."

There were much too many _have been_'s in her past, her existence, and she was sick of them. Harry Potter was a real hero, it said in the history books, the papers. She knew it wasn't true. It was because real heroes were forgotten, and Harry Potter was far from being forgotten. Real heroes were the people who died because their heart told them so, not because of evil dark lords and mystical prophesies. They died because it was the right thing to do, the only thing.

She almost stumbles over the grave marker, crushing the dead remains of roses left far long ago. She remembers how they told her it looked, an unmarked grave, with a piece of creased parchment folded over underneath a stone angel. The words she knows well, for she had penned them years ago. She feels for the dead roses, plucking them from beneath layers of snow, and tucks them in her robe pocket. She had boxes of them now, stacked high within her wardrobe. She lets the fresh rose drop to the grave clumsily, her fingers stiff from the cold.

She feels tears again, though she cannot see them, and slips the hood from over her head. A stream of prayers and pleads slip from between her lips, words fumbling over each other to escape to confines of a desperate mind. A handful of Hail Mary's and she feels whole again. Even though she knows it isn't possible, because she's a blind, heartbroken little girl who lost everything to the war.

Her pretty eyes, that once danced and laughed, gaze blankly at where she envisions the grave lies. They used to be lovely, chestnut-brown and framed with black, long lashes. They are still the same lovely brown and framed with coquettish lashes, but they are empty. It is almost like looking into a hollow soul. A damned person, with nothing left except the memories. Even though she is sightless, she recites the words that were scrawled on the parchment so many years ago with a child's ease.

"_Here lies Neville Longbottom,  
__The only light in this world of darkness,  
__The only true hero that ever lived.  
__July 30th, 1980 – October 31st 1997."_

The words feel heavy on her tongue and her heart aches at all the things they left unsaid. Had she told him she adored him, had she told him how much he truly meant? She wishes for salvation, for the truth behind these masked lies. She wishes that she had her own life, one that she shared with him, that she saw the world again, and that everything would be the same. Like old times, when fairytales were once merely a step away. But they never are, always just a mere centimetre away.

She'd sell her soul for redemption, for a second chance. But no-one's buying, these days. After all, she's only a little blind girl who lost the world that one cold, blustery day when she was sixteen. She remembers kissing him and screaming and crying as her world exploded into flames. She remembers his slender fingers, his soft voice, and those bright, happy eyes.

She decides that she's going to get a drink tonight, maybe two. Sell her soul for a glass of bourbon and a nasty leer and grope. No-one liked him, they thought of him as a coward. They were fools. He was the only hero that had been left in the world. And now he was gone, too. The glass of bourbon becomes an entire bottle, for she doesn't know how much longer she can handle this torture she puts herself through.

Sometimes, she feels as if the world's against her. Other times, she knows it is.

And with one final whisper of an oath and a kiss, she turns away and dons her hood over her soft, ruddy locks once again. With one final stream of teardrops, she bids goodbye for as long as it could be, and hears the crunch of freshly fallen snow under her boots as she walks home. As she walks home to her brother and his wife, back to her room in the attic and the empty, desolate bed that she sleeps in every night, and wishes he was there with her. Back to tracing the cover of her second-hand bible and wondering why it comforted her more than anything. Back to her reality and shattered home.

But even as she passes the cluster of dead, snow-covered flowers, she wishes one last time that real heroes weren't forgotten, but simply misplaced. It's never like that, she knows, but she can dream and hope and carry something in that austere essence of hers.

She was a broken girl, a lost soul.

Her name was Ginevra Weasley, aged twenty-two years old.

And she'd never be able to love again.

FIN.


End file.
